December 2001

Dynamic Duo

Craig is an avid collector of fine and exotic woods. When he finds the perfect piece for a new instrument,
he sends it over to us and has something special made. Although we had to pull some special tricks to
make the particular pieces of wood work for these projects, we were all extremely pleased with the results. One
procedure we used was a splice to make the Coco Bolo board wide enough to bookmatch for the short scale.
When Craig received the basses, he told Susan he liked them very much, but wished we could have used the wood he
supplied. When Susan told him it was the very wood he sent to us, he was shocked he couldn't find the joint where
we made the board wider. Then he liked them even more.
When he ordered these two basses, Craig left a good deal of the specifications up to us to decide as we went along.
sometimes the wood presents you with a good idea after it's cut, so having this freedom was alot of fun and a
bit different building experience that we typically have.

Perhaps among the most remarkable features of this pair is the creamy Pink Ivory top and back on the long scale bass.
It's among the densest of woods, and when we routed the roundover along the edge of the bass, the surface left by the
bit was so highly polished it required very little sanding. This board was wide enough to make the entire width of the
bookmatches, and we even had a bit left over.

The Coco Bolo Craig supplied was wildly grained. We decided to make the peghead veneers out of the same wood. We also made the
Pink Ivory
veneers for the long scale bass. Instead of our traditional Walnut and Maple peghead veneers, we used Purpleheart and Maple in both of these instruments.

Maybe it's not the first thing you notice, but once you do, wow! The short scale bass has a Coco Bolo fingerboard made from the same piece of wood
as the front, back and veneers. Since the wood had such tight swirly figure, we decided to leave off the inlays. On the long scale, we chose
Purpleheart for the fingerboard with a pink-toned natural abalone for the oval inlays.

Both basses feature the Stinger Omega body with
some variation. The longscale starts with a 3/4 Standard Point template, then we carve the Stinger. On the short scale, we had to make a new template
since this is the first Small Standard Stinger body shape we've made.